


coming up for air

by phollie



Category: Pandora Hearts
Genre: Growing Up Together, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-14
Updated: 2014-03-14
Packaged: 2018-01-14 09:33:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1261474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phollie/pseuds/phollie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gilbert’s toes curl in his boots when Oz takes one step closer to him, and then a few more until they’re standing before each other. Gilbert is a full head taller than him now; once upon a happier time ago, they stood face to face. That breaks his heart, makes him feel like he’s cheated at a game he didn’t know he was playing. [Ozbert in three phases, three touches, three milestones.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	coming up for air

+

**coming up for air**

+

 _i._ _fourteen and fifteen_

_+_

            “It will  _not_  go flat,” Oz grumbles, “no matter  _what_  I do.”

            Gilbert doesn’t want to be the one to admit it, but Oz is right – the state of his cowlicks is hopeless, and there’s no solving the current conundrum of making them sit in some semblance of neatness. Even still, Oz does get rather passionate when he’s frustrated, and Gilbert can’t deny to himself how he adores that; in fact, he has to consciously bite back the endeared smile that twitches at the corner of his mouth every time Oz huffs and puffs and slaps at his hair as if by using brute force, his cowlick will get the point and finally submit.

            So far, it hasn’t been helping at all, and Gilbert is delighted, albeit secretly.

            On the outside, though, he’s all determination and staid seriousness as he stands behind Oz’s chair before the mirror, offering his encouragements when needed. “I think you look just fine, master.”

            Oz shoots Gil an exasperated look in the reflection of the mirror. “Oh, Gil, of  _all_ things to call me when I’m already this annoyed!” He turns his attention back to patting hopelessly at the front of his bangs, which only seems to flip up all the more obviously with all the obsessive prodding and petting. “How much longer do we have?”

            Gilbert checks the clock on the wall. “Ten minutes.”

            Oz swings around in his chair, looks up at Gilbert with horrified eyes. “Are you serious?  _Ten minutes_  before the ceremony?”

            “I would not lie to you, mas – Oz.”

            “Don’t think I didn’t catch that ‘master’ you almost threw in there.”

            “I am sorry. It is a habit I am very much trying to break. I know it agitates you so.”

            “I wish you wouldn’t speak so formally,” Oz mutters, looking more and more miserable by the moment. “It’s like you’re from one hundred years ago or some nonsense, back when people actually spoke like that and it was normal. But it’s not normal anymore, Gil, so stop.”

            Gilbert feels a strange tugging from deep inside of him at those words, something like a reminder, a tiny blinking light in his memory, but it’s gone in a flash and a flurry of smoke, and so he lets it fade off into nothingness where it belongs. (For now.)

            “Help me out a little here,” Oz says, beckoning Gilbert to come around to the front of the chair and assist in the trials and tribulations involved in flattening a stubborn cowlick. “Maybe you’ll be better at this than I am.”

            Gilbert’s stomach flips at least four consecutive times, leaving him giddy and a bit nauseous. “I do not – rather, I don’t think I will be of much help, I will only make it worse – "

            “It can’t possibly get any worse than it already is,” Oz says, “so do anything you can to make it work.”

            Oz tips down the golden crown of his head. Gilbert’s breath cuts out short when Oz’s fingers curl around his wrist to guide his hand atop the pretty blond of his hair. “Do your best,” Oz tells him. “Don’t let me down.”

            Of course, Gilbert ultimately fails in flattening the cowlick, but he takes a secret sort of joy in having a feasible excuse to touch Oz, who is, at any other time, untouchable, exalted high above Gilbert where he can’t reach him. It feels like a gift, touching him. His fingers slip through the silky gold of the other’s hair for longer than need be, and Oz doesn’t question it, doesn’t stop him.

            “You look wonderful,” Gilbert murmurs, fourteen-years-old and in love with the sun.

            “What?” Oz lifts his head just a little so that their eyes meet. “Did you fix it?”

            Gilbert snaps out of his trance and realizes he hasn’t done a lick of good to fix Oz’s current predicament. He splutters stupidly for a moment before Oz shrieks with frustration and bats his hand away, but he’s laughing, and that’s good. It’s always good when Oz laughs.

            It’s the last time they’re alone together for ten years. By the time Oz comes back to him, Gilbert has forgotten what softness feels like.

+

_ii. twenty-four and fifteen_

+

            Oz hasn’t lost any of his light even after being plunged into the monstrous darkness of the underworld. He also hasn’t grown out of his cowlicks.

            Gilbert, twenty-four years old and still feeling like a dumb, lost child, stands behind Oz’s chair before the mirror and tries not to get sick.

            Oz is talking, lamenting over his hair. Again. Gilbert can’t hear him, every sound diluted and faraway as if his head is in a fishbowl. The entire situation is repeating itself ten years too late. Gilbert stares at the back of Oz’s neck where little licks of blond kick up in almost-curls that Gilbert’s fingers are burning to touch. Every part of him burns to touch Oz, but he can’t, and so he doesn’t. Ten years of solitude and suicidal daydreams have taught him the maliciousness of desire, the perils of denying oneself of anything good, and so he’s used to it. He’s used to having nothing to hold onto. Almost.

            “ – no matter  _what_ I do.”

            Gilbert claws his way back to reality, blinking dumbly at Oz in the mirror. “Sorry, what was that?”

            Oz huffs out a breath through his nose, but there’s a shy sort of smile that’s trying not to curl at the corner of his mouth. Gilbert sees it anyway. He clings to it like a man clinging to the last thing keeping him alive, which perhaps Oz is, perhaps always has been. “You’d think after ten years,” Oz says, “you would’ve figured out a remedy for cowlicks, Gil.”

            The words “ten years” hang like an ugly thing in the air between the two of them. Gilbert inhales its bitter cloud on his next breath so that Oz doesn’t have to, tucks those two words deep inside of him where they won’t see the light of day, straps that burden onto himself just like the gun strapped around his thigh. He presumes the only real things he’s figured out over ten years have been how to kill people and how to want so badly to touch Oz Vessalius that the madness of longing is a very, very familiar thing to him – but he’s not going to say that and ruin Oz’s night.

            Instead he says, “I think you look wonderful.”

            Oz gives a little snort of laughter, twisting a lock of his bangs between his fingertips in an effort to smooth it. “You  _think_?”

            “I…I didn’t mean it as a doubt.”  _Wonderful doesn’t even touch the surface of what I think about you right now,_ Gilbert’s mind shoots off heatedly.  _If I could tell you everything I’m feeling I bet we’d be here forever -_

            “I’m just kidding, Gil, it’s fine.” Oz gets to his feet with a sigh, brushing off his elegant thighs that Gilbert tries not to stare at even while the boy is fully clothed. “I was hoping tonight’s ceremony might bring me a little more luck than the last one,” he muses. But then he quickly adds, “When it comes to my hair, I mean.”

            Gilbert’s toes curl in his boots when Oz takes one step closer to him, and then a few more until they’re standing before each other. Gilbert is a full head taller than him now; once upon a happier time ago, they stood face to face. That breaks his heart, makes him feel like he’s cheated at a game he didn’t know he was playing.

            “Do you think Elliot is coming?” Oz asks, looking hopeful and so beautiful that Gilbert grits his teeth to control himself from whatever it is that’s climbing its way up into his chest with needy little hands. He keeps his own hands firmly hidden within the pockets of his coat, toes remaining tightly curled. Oz doesn’t seem to notice, only says, “I mean, I don’t know if it’s a duty of the duke houses to come to things like this…I can’t remember if it was like that for my first ceremony, do you?”

            “I’m sure Elliot will come,” Gilbert says tightly. And then, because that doesn’t feel like enough, he adds, “I’m sure he wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

            “All the more reason for my hair to look halfway decent,” Oz jokes, smiling wonderfully, all things bright and perfect and still untouchable, still exalted. “Help me out a little here.”

            And then he ducks the golden crown of his head again, forgetting Gilbert is taller than him now. Gilbert wants to cry and probably would if he could remember how to. Oz lifts his head again, trying not to look embarrassed. It’s another thing for Gilbert to cling desperately to, hyper-vigilant of everything about the boy’s face after going so long without seeing it in anything but dreams.

            “Stop giving me that constipated face,” Oz mumbles, reaching for Gilbert’s wrist, just like before. When Gilbert’s stiff, nervous hand touches the soft gold of Oz’s hair – ( _finally, finally, finally, god I’ve missed you so much) –_ he’s suddenly fourteen all over again, and Oz is still the sun – brilliant and warm and so, so far away from Gilbert’s cold, pathetic moon.

            “I really do hope Elliot comes, though,” Oz says in the midst of Gilbert’s dazed, breathless touches of his hair disguised as meaningful attempts at help. “That’d certainly make up for having to be in the company of Isla Yura all night.”

+

_iii. twenty-eight and nineteen_

+

 _“_ You know,” Oz murmurs, “I think I’m actually starting to like it.”

            Gilbert, still curled up in bed, smiles at Oz’s reflection in the mirror a few feet away. “I’ve been waiting to hear you say that for  _years_  now.”

            Oz shoots him a little smile over his shoulder before turning back around to look at himself in the mirror. Gilbert sees the broadening line of his bare shoulders rise and fall in a slow, measured breath. “And I mean all of it,” Oz says quietly. “Not just this little thing.” He takes hold of that stubborn flip of his bangs, touches it with fond fingertips. Then he lets it go and hesitantly touches the curve of his own cheek, tracing the outline of his face with a careful tenderness that makes Gilbert’s chest feel impossibly warm.

            Oz’s eyes are bright and thoughtful as he takes in his reflection, quietly accepting, no longer loathing. “You know how hard it was for me to look in mirrors for a while, after…all that.” He pauses, takes another deep breath. “So I guess it just…it feels nice to be able to do that now, I mean. To really look at myself and see  _me._ ”

            Gilbert watches him with soft, adoring eyes, the blanket pulled up over his head so that only his face peeks out. The space beside him that Oz had occupied minutes ago is still warm from his body heat; Gilbert touches that space with his one hand and closes his eyes in a moment’s breathless disbelief that they’ve come this far, sharing a bedroom, sharing a bed, safe and alive and away from all the noise and motion of the city. Out here, things are quiet and slow and patient. Everything is warm, just like this space in the bed where Oz’s body had been curled against Gilbert’s before he’d drifted to the other side of the small room to look at his reflection that he finally fully believes belongs to him.

            Gilbert opens his eyes to look at the elegant curve of the back of Oz’s neck. A thought comes to him, and it sparks with nostalgia deep within his chest. He smiles. “Oz?”

            Oz turns around in his chair to look at Gilbert directly rather than through the mirror. His brows are lifted, his eyes round and clear. “Hm?”

            “You look wonderful.”

            Oz’s mouth opens, a soft little oval of surprise, and then closes. Then smiles. “You do too, Gil,” he says quietly, the sunlight falling prettily upon his face like something coming home.

            Gilbert reaches out his arm to him, reaches through the pool of light to where it settles warmly on Oz’s body. His fingertips graze against that familiar wayward flick of Oz’s bangs. Oz’s smile is feather-light, as is the touch to Gilbert’s wrist as he guides his hand to settle atop the blond, bed-tousled mess of his hair. Gilbert’s touch drifts down to cup Oz’s cheek, and when Oz holds that hand against his warm skin, eyes closing, Gilbert thinks it’s the happiest he’s ever seen him in all his life.

            It was all worth it. Everything was worth it in the end.


End file.
